SCALPERS HAVE BEEN AT WORK AGAIN . . .
this time in Chicago. You know what scalpers are — folks who will take everything you have, presumably right down to the head bone, in exchange for a sought after pass to some public event. In other words, they buy tickets at face value and then resell them on a street corner for an amount that's several times what they paid.

Even though it's illegal in most places, scalpers continue to rip people off, usually offering them the privilege of attending an athletic contest or a concert. But the price gouging going on in the Windy City a year and a half ago had nothing to do with the White Sox, Cubs or Bears. They weren't hawking an admission to see Michael Jordan rejoin the Bulls or even a reunion concert of the Beatles. They were getting $100 each for tickets that would grant the holder permission to attend an exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Art.

On exhibit in the museum was a display of paintings by the French artist, Claude Monet (pronounced, "moe-NAY"). Included was a series of portraits of the cathedral in Rouen, France, that demonstrate the artist's keen sensitivity to light and darkness. Monet was fascinated by the change in the appearance of this great, gothic structure as the sun passed across the sky. Every day during the months of March and April, for several years in the 1890's, the painter would station himself with eleven canvases in front of the building and work furiously for six hours. His eyes were so sensitive to shadows and changes in the light that after only 30 minutes the picture he saw when he looked at the building was entirely different from the one he had begun to paint just half an hour earlier. So Monet quickly set that canvas aside and laid his brush to the next.

Talking to Nicodemus, Jesus said, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God" (John 3:19-21).

Every genuine believer in Jesus Christ would agree with those verses. But we tend to apply the love of darkness to others — not ourselves. There's a failure to realize that men — all men, saved and lost alike — have a magnet inside that draws them to the shadows. So even Christians can find themselves asking, "Isn't it okay for me just to stand in the shade for a little while? It's not very dark over there and I can step right back out into the light in a moment's notice." And that leads to the question, "Well, how dark is too dark? If it's all right to stand in the shade, can I move deeper into the shadows? How about the mouth of the cave?" And you can soon lose your ability to distinguish between shades of darkness and light. We need the sensitivity of Monet.

The Apostle John later wrote, "God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from every sin" (1 John 1:5-7).

Exposure to light creates an image on photographic paper. My prayer is that a continued exposure to "the Light of the world" will keep us from suffering the deep pain of the consequences of deeds done in darkness and make His image clearly visible in our lives. If we focus on Him, I believe He will do that in us!

Without a shadow of a doubt,
Richard